Eazue - Milk-Tree, Home-Tree, and Soul-Tree (Eh-a-zu-eh)

Eazue are hermaphroditic, producing rose-white blossoms that distribute pollen. Once pollinated, they develop a teatwort, a fruit that fills withthe tree's nutritious milk-sap. Creatures who ingest the teat-wort consume the tree's micro-seeds, which they carry with them and spread as they relieve themselves.

Milk-trees are native to the continent of Asana, and may be found in both tropical and temperate woodland zones. Additionally, they occur on Sovyrian, and other continents as well.

The trees blossom in mid-Heaventide, near Newyear's Day. Their fruit begin ripening just after Blight-tide, and continue doing so through that season.

Along with being used as home-trees, Milk-trees are cultivated in groves around temples and shrines. A particularly large or old Milk-tree, or one growwing atop a hill or crag, may be venerated as a shrine in its own right. Cities and communities will dedicate temples and priesthoods to awakened Soul-trees.

Milk-sap may also be harvested through spirling. Along with drinking the raw milk, it may be made into cheese. The oil may also be separated to be used separately.

Varies, from subsentient to superintelligent.   As part the of Eazu’s telepathy, the tree will capture psychic resonances from its member-dwellers, thus allowing extended psychic communication within the tree’s influence. Here the normal 20ft range-limit to Lashunta telepathy no longer applies. Furthermore, longtime dwellers will have an analog of their mind captured within the tree’s resonances, leading Lashunta to believe that the spirits of their ancestors continue to dwell within the Hometree long after death. Skilled Lashunta symbiant-priests can even pick specific memories from the tree’s psyche, which depending on the tree’s age, can go back hundreds or even thousands of years.   While the trees do not exhibit direct intelligence, over millennia, and given sufficient exposure to Lashunta minds and personalities, a sufficiently advanced Home-Tree - now called a Soul-Tree while develop what is called an Overmind: an amalgam of multiple mind-resonances, which begin to show independent thought. In this case, the Overmind does not think of itself as a tree, but identifies with the multiple Lashunta whose thoughts and memories fuel its development. Where an Eazu shows an Overmind, priests will be dedicated to the Soul-Tree’s care and to assist with developing its consciousness.

The Milk-tree can psychically scan nearby creatures for threats and transmit this information to others. It can also absorb memories from creatures, which may be accessed by someone who has psychically bonded with the tree. Over centuries or millennia, with enough exposure to intelligent creatures and memories, it may evolve a psychically active consciousness.   The tree has the ability to telepathically assess whether a given animal’s presence and actions are a threat or boon to the tree’s welfare. In the presence of creatures the tree perceives as a threat, its teat-worts dry out, and no more milksap is produced until the creature leaves. If a creature is deemed helpful by the tree, it would continue to produce milksap to encourage the creature to stay, presumably that such a creature may discourage more hostile animals from meddling with the tree. So is the case with the Lashunta, who will gladly protect a Milk-tree from anything that can harm it, while harvesting the rich milk-sap, even from spirling into the bark, and will even build their homes within the great tree’s limbs - thus making it a Home-Tree.

All Lashunta cities cultivate an Eazue, believed to capture the city’s spirit and consciousness. The city of Son claims that its Soul-Tree’s Overmind can call forth memories from 24,000 years ago, at the city’s founding.

Among many Lashunta cities, the grant of communion with the city's Soul-Tree is a great honor, for by this deed one's memories and thoughts will be recorded in perpetuity.

Lashunta will avoid spilling blood anywhere on a Milk-tree, even while hunting int the wild, or bringing it into a treehouse within the Milk-tree's branches, to avoid offending the tree's spirit and making its milk-sap dry up.

Maeazuvire, the first Milk-tree, bore the first Lashunta. The first Lashunta was born from a teatwort among its leaves. The first Korasha was born from a knothole in its trunk.